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 Retyped
from a saved news article about my great grandmother, Viola Huff. It is
written by her daughter, Ina Lee Childers (formerly Mrs. Elmer
Anderson) and was published in the Ponca City News, 1968. Her only
child is my mother, Mrs. Nila Lee Stevenson, nee Anderson, she was
married to the late Col. Ralph L. Stevenson, both were born and raised
in Ponca City.
- Ralph L. Stevenson, Jr. newmexicotartan@juno.com
(Editor’s Note: The 75th
Anniversary of the Cherokee Strip opening brought to many a renewed
appreciation of the part their parents and others played in developing
this area. Following is by Mrs. Ina Childers, 206 North Third, whose
parents were pioneers.)
Pioneer Resident Recalls Early
Days of Her Family in Ponca City
By Mrs. Ina
Lee Huff Childers
I wish I knew
what gave my mother the desire to come west to Oklahoma. I was too
young to realize then, and I can’t remember her telling me
why. She came with her three little children, you might say babies. Her
grandfather, George Hartman (wife, Blanche Coon) who was a pioneer in
Indiana, just could not think of her leaving Indiana. All her relatives
just knew that we would all be scalped by the Indians, and they tried
hard to persuade her to give up the idea. But she had the courage and
the determination.
My father was anxious to make the Run. He was all for it. But he
didn’t get to do that, (the big Run was in 1893). They
finally came here in 1898 and father raised wheat for other people. My
mother devoted hours upon hours to her part in making possible the
wheat crops, feeding the many harvest hands that it took to harvest. In
those days, harvesting was much different from today. Binders, men
shocking the wheat, threshing machines, and wagons to haul the wheat to
the elevators, all of it took many days to do what is done in a day
today. Because there where so many men working, the kitchen was of
utmost importance. I can remember well, my mother baking 25 loaves of
bread a day during the harvest, on a cookstove that used wood and cobs
for fuel. That same stove produced angle cakes that would take first
prize anywhere.
My father, Sam Huff (parents, Johnson Huff & Martha L. Brown),
was a man of great strength and courage, six feet three inches tall. He
never seemed to tire, and he worked continuously. Incidentally, one of
his jobs was on the excavation for the building of the Ponca City News.
Before he died in January, 1924, he had a great deal to do in his way
with the building of Ponca City.
We did not have money, like a few had, but my parents did surmount the
obstacles and hardships that came their way. Our first home in Ponca
City was a two-room tent on North First Street, just a few doors north
of what in now Sherm’s Service Station. The next home was in
the big city, then, of Cross. We lived in a brick home just across the
street and a little south of the City Water and Light Department. Then
later we lived in what is now Acre Homes Addition, just across 14th
from where the Glenn Parises live. We had a rock house, the only house
from Highland to Hartford. My father farmed that section.
Ponca City was home, and we spent most of our time in Ponca City. I
don’t believe anyone in town, for example, got more use out
of the iron fountain (now on the Civic Center lawn) than we did. It was
on North Fourth, perhaps 40 feet north of Grand Avenue. We would drink
ourselves, and at the same time water the horse and the dog.
That’s what the three levels were for.
My brother, Nile Huff, gave his life for his country. He was the first
boy from Ponca City and Kay County to die on the battlefield in WWI, at
Belleau Wood, France, June 15, 1918. He was a few days over 19 years
old when killed. He was a US Marine. Nile is buried at Arlington
National Cemetery, Washington DC, and American Legion Post 14 here
bears his name.
Harry Huff, my other brother, (wife, Mabel Gadberry) and I both worked
for E.W. Marland Oil Company. Harry spent 35 years with the old Marland
company and with Continental, when only loading racks stood where the
refinery is today.
I graduated from Oklahoma A&M College and was the first women
employee to work for Marland and W.H. McFadden when the office was just
two or three rooms on South First Street, in a red brick building that
is still standing.
We have been a Ponca City family, and mother loved and cherished Ponca
City until her death on October 1, 1954. (This story's author, my
Grandmother Ina, died in Ponca City on December 18, 1982. She owned and
operated Ina Childer's Gift Shop, that made an income to send my mother
to college and take care of her mother. The shop was in the front of
the home and was located in the 300 block of North Third, next to the
Ponca City News, with their presses downstairs. The bus station was
across the alley. When staying with my grandparents, I had plenty of
places to get in trouble).
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